Posted
by
timothyon Wednesday February 16, 2011 @12:16AM
from the all-in-all-it's-been-a-good-run dept.

dinscott writes "Last month, The New York Times ran a story about Stuxnet having been developed by the Americans and the Israelis as a part of a joint project, but it was based on claims by confidential sources. It now seems that the information from these sources was correct. The Haaretz — Israel's oldest daily newspaper — reports on a surprising video that was played at a party organized for General Gabi Ashkenazi's last day on the job."

However the Bible, the world's first and oldest printed book, fails to mention any aspect of this story, including the General's involvement.

I didn't know they had translated the bible to Chinese thousand years ago...

I didn't know the Chinese had invented movable type thousand years ago.

The devil is in the details. The Chinese and Koreans had a process of printing that used movable type as part of the process, but the task of making the plates needed for each page was so laborious that few books were printed that way.

From wikipedia [wikipedia.org]: During the reign of Chingli, [1041â"1048] Bi Sheng, a man of unofficial position, made movable type. His method was as follows: he took sticky clay and cut in it characters as thin as

What part about the movable-type printing press -- albeit with more expensive ceramic letters -- being invented by the 1040 AD by Bi Sheng in China, did you fail to understand? Basically before being snarky and condescending, do make sure that you're not the one who's the ignorant idiot.

Well worldy scholars and scientists have known for quite some time that the Bible outweighs the Haaretz here by a pound to a pound and a half sometimes, outweighs the Talmud sometimes by three to four pounds, outweighs that mighty Koran sometimes by five to ten pounds. You think about that.

The bible is about as fictional as listening to WWI stories from the son of a vet who served there.

While accurate in a broad sense the details may or may not be so accurate. The bible's biggest problem is that it has been translated so many times that the original hebrew and greek versions differ from the modern day versions.

And if you use the King James version you are specifically using a version dumbed down by a king to make it easier for the stupid people to understand.

Iran, even if they ever did manage to create a nuclear bomb, would never drop it on Israel, because the entire Arab world would turn against them. Why? Wind. The prevailing winds in the region would blow the fallout from Israel to the northeast, over Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and maybe even Iran to the Caspian Sea. Otherwise, it would get blown over Saudi Arabia or Egypt.

As backward or simple as some may perceive Iran to be, I'm sure they know that fallout doesn't stay in the immediate blast zone.

No, they only do that when there's TV cameras around. Notice that sometimes when you're seeing "jubilant arabs" on TV, most of them are just standing around wondering what's going on until they see the camera swing towards them, at which point they look around to see what the last people in front of the camera were doing, which is usually jumping up and down waving their arms in the air, and copy that.

This is absolutely true. Actually, the Arabs don't care about Israel very much at all, and have certainly never celebrated attacks on Israel or the US, its sole Western supporter. The guys with sign boards saying things like "Death to Israel!" and "Drive them into the Sea" are in fact Jewish actors hired by Mossad to justify Israeli aggression against the Middle East. What you think is "the streets of Iran" is in fact a blue-screen television studio in the basement of a government building in Tel Aviv. Why,

There are governments and media corporations with pro-Israel interests. There are governments and media corporations with anti-Israel interests. Some of these groups represent extreme views, others more moderate. But each one has a bias and its output will reflect its interests.

You, OTOH, are erecting a crazy straw man, harming Israel by painting such a ridiculously polarised picture that you overshadow reasoned argument from those moderates who try to defend Israel.

One bad (and almost certain) outcome of Iran obtaining nukes - especially homegrown - would be an increase in nationalistic pride and therefore support for the current government (which appears to have significant internal opposition, although probably not majority opposition, at the moment). People love leaders who make them feel strong and secure.

Why would they nuke Israel to help out Syria anyway for no possible gain to Iran?When Iran get nukes instead it will be "Bahrain - you've got a nice island there, shame if somebody nuked it. Want to buy some insurance?"

You are forgetting the Shi'ite vs. Sunni civil war. The Iranian Regime doesn't give a flying rat's ass about the Israelis one way or another except that the Sunni Arabs hate the Israelis. The Iranians believe if they are the ones to knock off Israel, either with a nuke or their dogs Hezbollah, then the Shi'ites will be seen as the true branch of Islam. They aren't particular how they do it, and if a bunch of Sunni's die in the process, that's less opposition for the Shi'ites.

Israel already has an established software industry without aid from the US.

Most people (in SW industry) I know from Israel have their background in Silicon Valley and most companies have their background on people who met while working in States. Again most (if not all) do not have USA governmental support, but US private sector had lost lots of brilliant people to Israel software industry. While this is true for some other countries as well, I guess Israel has a bigger percentage when normalized in population etc.

It's not murder if a cop shoots an armed person who draws a gun on them. It's not a felony for law enforcement officers to carry concealed weapons. It's not assault when a doctor cuts you open with a knife. It's not theft when a banker takes your money and puts it in the bank's vault.

Is it really so hard to understand that every nation gives a few sanctioned individuals the legal right to do what needs to be done, but can still make it illegal for everyone else?

If you like, we can allow Iran to test out their new toy on your house.

.
So I assume you wouldn't mind Israel treating your house like it were on the Gaza strip, your family like Palestinians, and in the end using their toys on your neighbourhood, just because Iran might be developing a similar toy to those Israel already has for years?

My definition of terrorism has something to do with actual violence against civilians.

What, like bulldozing people's homes, often without giving them the chance to retrieve any posessions? Attacking schools with helicopter gunships when the children are outside playing? Herding people into ghettos and forcing them into makeshift camps?

well my friends,the term terrorism (or freedom fighting) is used when a non-goverment organization commits an act against the law of the country in which it is commited.

That's complete bollocks. A company dodging taxes would be terrorism by that definition. Terrorism is the use of attacks against a population in order to coerce the government into accepting your demands.

Yes, when I read the headline my first thought was "The Israelis can't possibly be so stupid as to do that. That's almost tantamount to admitting to an act of war. And doing it now will just make the faltering Iranian government look more like a valid object of sympathy." And then I read TFA. Yeah.

"Act of war"? I suggest you read the maifesto of Hezb Allah or th Iranian Revolutionary Government. They have repeatedly stated their aim is to destroy the "Zionist entity" by any means possible - that is, effectively declared war. Go ahead, read their pronouncements (especially the ones originally not in English), I'll wait. You might stop being so naiively prissy about who declares or doesn't declare what on whom. The Middle East is the "Wild West" at the moment, yet many in the West seem to be pretty ignorant about the *real* positions of each party (nb. I've been to a lot of the countries in the region, non are saints, but some are far worse than others).

Yeah, my first thought was:Ah, so the good general 'took one for the team' as he was stepping down, so everyone could STFU.

He wouldn't be the first to put themselves at personal risk out of a sense of duty and/or honour(as they see it), precariously assuming the above is close, purely on speculation, and from a 'what if...' point of view.

Not much from TFA or TFS to go on, so I see it as all speculation and guesswork at this stage.

A general stepping down vaguely mentioned some statement that 'yeah, it was me

Not nearly as " The LaBrea Tar Pits"... which when rendered in 100% English ends up being "the the tar tar pits".

For those who don't know, LaBrea Tar Pits (redundant I know) is a archeological dig site of oil tar pools where prehistoric mammals like SaberTooth Tigers and Giant Sloths (not to be confused with Cowboy Neal), fell trapped to their deaths. You can see parts of it in the movie Volcano, which takes part near the site.

Does anyone think it is a coincidence that, just a few months after all the information about Stuxnet has come out and presumably Iran has secured its critical computers against drive-by install from flash drives, Microsoft closes the autorun hole with an update?

As much as O'Reilly annoys me, I really, sincerely hope that you are able to recognize satire when you see it and are just hoping for some karma by being sarcastic or trolling. For the benefit of the doubt and for my sanity, I'll presume the latter.

During the farewell ceremony for the Israeli army's chief of staff a video was shown that summarized the events of his term, that video included news reports about stuxnet and the attack on the nuclear reactor in Syria.

If Iran/pakistan/n.korea/... had created Stuxnet and it had targetted military infrastructure in the UK/USA/Israel/... imagine the broohaha, the passionate outpourings from politicians, the chasing down of those who wrote it.

They have neither denied nor confirmed this. But it doesn't matter. What matters, is, that Israel's neighbors think that they might have nuclear weapons. Which is a great deterrent against starting a war with Israel.

Did Israel develop Stuxnet? And are they capable of creating even more nasty computer weapons? Again, it is very formidable, to have your enemies think that you have stuff . . . even if you don't. So this could be a clever disinformation leak . . . or maybe not . ..

I just read the original article, and as a fluent Hebrew speaker, can safely say that it's been grossly misquoted and misinterpreted.

During the generals retirement party, news coverage of both the Stuxnet and the Syrian reactor attack was shown, probably as part of a recent army related events montage. This was no power-point slide titled "recent accomplishments". The conclusion drawn here are akin to claiming that the US was responsible for the recent unrest in Egypt, since news coverage of that even was played at the retirement party of a state secretary...

Israel may have been responsible for these events, but I'd hardly say this "evidence" is conclusive

There are half a dozen middle east countries currently working on building nuclear reactors, the situation will be quite different in ten years. The USA isn't going to protect you guys forever, why not make peace?

The problem is that there are no partners for peace at the moment. If you were to actually ask a real Gazan or Palestinian it is possible to make peace with Israel -- they will tell you that the best Qu'ran will allow them to do is "hudna" -- i.e. long term cease-fire.
As for the nuclear technology becoming a common occurrence in the Middle East -- trust me Israel is keeping tabs on them.
If you were to look at the history, in 1948 and 1967, the US did not always have Israel's back. Even in 1973 US has st

First, the Quran does not say that, I think you're getting such a ridiculous notion from a neocon/zionist/Islamophobe. No "real Palestinian" (who?) would tell you that.

Second, look at The Palestine Papers [aljazeera.net]. The Palestinian government just fell because the PA was scandalously offering to give away Jerusalem and most of Palestine with nothing in return, and yet Netanyahu's government rejected the offers.

Thirdly, the president of Iran is such a red herring. Does he control the military? No. Did he say "wipe Israel off the map?" No. To quote his exact words in Farsi: "Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad." No such idiom exists in Persian, and Ahmadinejad actually just quoted an old speech of Khomeini in which he said “The occupation regime (over Jerusalem) must vanish from the page of time.” It's not about tanks going into Israel, but more like how Regan said the USSR would one day only exist in a history book. Of course Ahmadinejad does wish Israel would disappear, but he is not the Supreme Leader so he cannot make such an order. It's like the US Secretary of the Interior saying Iran should be invaded, he has no authority to do so. Believe it or not, Ahmadinejad denies he is anti-Semitic, he supports Jewish leaders in Iran and groups like Naturei Karta, and insists he is anti-Zionist, not anti-Judaism.

[quote] No. Did he say "wipe Israel off the map?" No. To quote his exact words in Farsi: "Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad." No such idiom exists in Persian, and Ahmadinejad actually just quoted an old speech of Khomeini in which he said “The occupation regime (over Jerusalem) must vanish from the page of time.” [/quote]

Maybe people who say things like: "The occupation regime (over Jerusalem) must vanish from the page of time.” Should stop being suck fucking morons and stop saying shit like that because things like that will be interpreted by a lot of people fanatic muslims, anti-muslims, the whole western world , and a lot of people i forget to mention here, as: "We should wipe Israel of the map"

It can either be that he is to dumb to realize that quotes like that will just flame the hatred because people interpret it as calls for agression, but my guess is that if he's got the brain to get to be leader of a country, he fully realizes that...

You can be all 'he didn't say that, and he meant it in a good way' but that's bullshit... He knows he says thing that can be interpreted in a wrong way.... even if he doesn't comprehend that he shouldn't lead a country anyway....

"Nobody is saying "he meant it in a good way," but there's quite a difference in what he actually said and people interpreting it as a sign of genocidal intent."

It is reasonable to suppose that the interpretation of genocidal intent might be reasonable given the throngs of thousands chanting "Death To Israel" many weeks per year for for 32 years, and the support for Hezbollah which has an explicitly exterminationist policy.

If the interpretation was "we want Israel to change its policies to have a much more satisfactory resolution so that Jews and Arabs will live peaceably", that clarification could have been offered.

But as far as I am aware, the ratio of that vs "Death To Israel" is something like zero to 30,000.

I think the phrase is lost in translation. In Persian, it means "Down with Israel," rather than the idea of killing everyone there that everyone is led to think. It doesn't mean killing or wiping everyone out.

When Mousavi was running in the presidential election against Ahmadinejad, the latter was giving away free potatoes to the crowds. Mousavi's followers didn't like that, and started the rallying cry "Death to Potatoes." [huffingtonpost.com]

Article (8) The Israeli existence in Palestine is a Zionist invasion with a colonial expansive base, and it is a natural ally to colonialism and international imperialism.Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.Article (19) Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab People's armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.

From what I've read and heard, the Israeli view of the Middle East is that they really ARE out to get them. I'm sure they're quite likely to err on the side of pessimistic estimates of their neighbors enmity, because that's how they view recent history.

But there's the problem, if you act paranoid and bomb your neighbors, who in turn get pissed and start organizing military in defense, then suddenly you begin assuming your paranoia was valid all along. Case in point, Hizbullah didn't exist until after 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon and then began claiming sections of it as Israeli land promised to it by God.

Hezbollah was created after the Amal militia proved ineffective against the Sunni's and Christians. Stop kidding yourself, the Israelis were simply the local boogie-man Hezbollah trots out to scare the locals into supporting it.

I would argue that all the points you make do in fact point to "Bully" and that is never a good thing.

Not to pick bones, but "Her inception" to all the other countries there, basically meant that someone came and took the land away from them! Of course they are annoyed and angry about it!

Does Israel get a pretty short straw? Absolutely, but I do have to say that I don't believe that they are making it easier for themselves. For the most part, that can be said about most nations in that region. The biggest player on a field should earn the respect of the other players and get them to follow suit rather than simply intimidating, running clandestine operations and in your words "assassinating nuclear scientists in other countries".

There aren't many fundamentalists compared to moderates, but every time one of them is killed, all the moderates close to that person will feel just that little more tired, angry or plain out infuriated - giving a net result of more fundamentalists. On the other hand, each act of compassion, each charitable hand extended will keep the moderates calm and you might even find a few of the fundamentalists starting to question violence.*

Stop the cycle of violence. BE the bigger man you claim you are.

* This idea really works anywhere in the world, not just the middle east. When will people figure out that the carrot will always win over the stick.

This is a tangent, but it's funny to me how what are called the "moderate Arab states" have been the most repressive, either socio-religiously (Saudi Arabia), or politically (Jordan and the Persian Gulf states).

Sadly, a lot of different factors combined to destroy the only multi-cultural democracy in the Middle East: Lebanon.

Sadly, a lot of different factors combined to destroy the only multi-cultural democracy in the Middle East: Lebanon.

Haven't those factors been at play for quite some time now? Of course the current state can be traced down to the last 40 years, but I've understood Lebanon has been attacked countless times due to it's geographical location and water supplies in the last few thousand years.

Sadly, a lot of different factors combined to destroy the only multi-cultural democracy in the Middle East: Lebanon.

You mean Iran, the muslim brotherhood(along with their splinter groups?) I really don't consider that a lot of different factors. I'd simply call it 'we hate the jews, and everyone will die for the cause!' "pushing the jews into the sea!!!!!111!"

Iraq seems mulit-culti to me. Kurds, Shia, Sunni, Turkmens...and well, there used to be Jews, Christians, and Ba'hai, but not any more. Even Saudi Arabia has a significant minority of Shi'ites, whom they piss on regularly with discriminatory laws.

. ..basically meant that someone came and took the land away from them! Of course they are annoyed and angry about it!

This is not accurate, though it's not entirely inaccurate, either. Some Palestinians left when fighting began, some were encouraged to leave and some were forced to leave.

I don't care to minimize the losses that have been suffered by forcibly displaced Palestinians, but I don't care to hear this canard repeated, either. In 1948, several Arab nations offered refuge until their armies destroyed the nascent Jewish state.

There is, by the way, one more thing worth noting: The land which Israel recognizes at i

Bingo, and one just small epicycle to add: after WWII, the British were in no mood to stay in colonies that yielded no economic benefits, such as, Palestine. And they would have left much sooner such as before the war except for latent anti-Jewish sentiment in the British government and their Arab friends in Palestine.

And one of those friends was the grand-mufti of Jerusalem who, much to the distaste of the Brits, spent time in Berlin licking Hitler's boots, thought Hitler had the right idea about how to so

Desperate times call for desperate measures. And Iran is indeed in a tough neighborhood where every single day, hour, second... Every single moment is a desperate time. Ever since her inception the US and Israel tried to annihilate her.
That is why there is a policy of development when it comes to the nuclear weapons. And assassinations of the nuclear scientists by Iran's enemies shows that they are doing something right. And bombings of their reactors and finally yes -- the virus.

And for any of you who would point a finger at the "neighborhood bully" -- remember, that you do not live in that neighborhood.

Yeah, but if I did live in, say, the Gaza strip, and the neighbour used Collective Punishment [wikipedia.org] (a war crime) on my society for democratically choosing, in an election [wikipedia.org] described as "free, transparent and without violence", someone they didn't like, then I'd probably work damn hard to fight for my freedom and escape from beneath their boot heel too.

Punishing people as a group for the actions of their freely elected government does not in fact strike me as collective punishment. Israel has certainly engaged in collective punishment in the past, but the Gaza/Hamas example seems poorly chosen.

If you allow that as an example of collective punishment, then would you consider economic sanctions collective punishment? What about imposing tariffs that lead to unemployment and hardship in the target country?

What about a declaration of war against an a country that has a draft?

Heck, is there any way you can think of to prosecute a war at all without effectively engaging on collective punishment?

I agree that it would be really nice if wars weren't fought, of course. But I don't see how one can be fought with modern weapons between modern states or any semblance thereof without ending up in collective punishment territory, with the exception of blitzkrieg campaigns with limited objectives like the 1967 Arab-Israeli war (and even that arguably had collective punishment as part of the consequences)...

In an underground chamber near the Iranian city of Natanz, a network of surveillance cameras offers the outside world a rare glimpse into Iran's largest nuclear facility. The cameras were installed by U.N. inspectors to keep tabs on Iran's nuclear progress, but last year they recorded something unexpected: workers hauling away crate after crate of broken equipment.

In a six-month period between late 2009 and last spring, U.N. officials watched in amazement as Iran dismantled more than 10 percent of the Natanz plant's 9,000 centrifuge machines used to enrich uranium. Then, just as remarkably, hundreds of new machines arrived at the plant to replace the ones that were lost.

Despite the disgusting assassination of scientists and cyberwarfare, Iran's still in business. If nothing else, it taught Iran how to cope with losing intelligence and resources.

That may have been the case for decades, but look, it's 2011. The facts have changed since the 1960s.

Egypt today has a peace treaty with Egypt and a separate one with Jordan. Israel and Turkey have a mutual defense treaty, and Turkey is a NATO member so attacking Israel will bring about massive retaliation from North American and European allies. Iraq, supposedly "Israel's greatest threat today" according to Ariel Sharon, is no longer a threat. I'd say that the neighborhood is far safer than it was 50 years ago; do you still see Israeli planes being hijacked?

Israel is one of the richest countries, with a GDP per capita bigger than Spain or South Korea. The US gives it billions of dollars in military aid and Most Favored Nation free trade status. Does anyone seriously think Israel is under threat of no longer existing?

Israel is generally safe from most of its neighbors. Maybe it would be even safer if it stops its policy of bashing all Arabs (as Israeli FM Avigdor Liberman does) or provoking its neighbors to anger by Israeli MKs referring to Arabs as "worms."

That means next to nothing. Iraq was not hindered when it attacked Turkey (actually the Kurds there, but as they were not recognized they attacked Turkey). And it did not stop the US from declaring war on the Netherlands (another NATO member) for housing the International Court of Justice

Yes, actually, it does. Israel currently receives more than $3 billion in (mostly military) aid from the US of A.

Jews compose no more than 0.3% . . . 30% of Nobel prizes . . . this is why they flourish.

You're wrong again. I won't dispute the statistics, but I will dispute the conclusion. They (oops, We) flourish because of a strong tradition of academic study, necessitated by the sheer volume that one needs to learn before Bar Mitzvah (and Bat Mitzvah for the more modern Jew). Further, in some areas of the world, Jews were forbidden from owning land (see the definition of "ghetto") so they were, by necessity, forced into academia, banking and other "service" occupations.

There was a single attack on the USA, and it went to war with another country. There is a terrorist attack on Israel every day. ..

Again, you grossly mis-charactarize, and ignore certain facts. The attack that brought down the World Trade Center (WTC) wasn't the first on that pair of buildings. Further, there was another (not of middle-east origin) terrorist attack in Oklahoma several years before the WTC was brought down. To make matters worse, we have more money than we deserve, and our president at the time was an authoritarian zealot.

I don't care to suggest that Israel, and Jews more generally don't have a difficult time, but your posting shows an ignorance that can't go without some response.

But, well said. The whole "We're under threat so we have to attack our neighbours and steal the land of non-Jews who live in our country" is a complete distortion of one of the world's greatest cultures. In the US and the UK, Jews are doing (for the most part) very well, and deservedly so because of their focus on social cohesiveness, education, and family values. Like Ireland and many Middle Eastern states, Israel has suffered from a succession of piss-poor governments (which are, because of their policies

You're right the Israeli government is not alone in belligerency and oppression in the region but for some reason the western governments tend to hold them up as some kind of great example and ignore what they are doing to their neighbors.

It would seem a terrorist territory, born of violence has simply continued down that path. Yes I know, it's all their fault for complaining and seeking assistance from neighbouring territories when they were being herded into reserva

And if anyone reads the articles you linked to, they will see that Irgun was officially categorized as a terrorist organization by the State of Israel upon its inception. One month later, Irgun forces and IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) clashed in military battles with casualties. Irgun has ceased to exist, and its ways have been denounced by the Israeli government. Implying otherwise requires more proof than you have given here.

Both references - the article on the Irgun and that of Deir Yassin - are sterling examples of the fallibility that Wikipdia engenders. Both articles are either carefully crafted to accuse without actually doing so outright ("the Irgun shot at an Arab", "Arabs were shot as well", "throwing explosives at an Arab bus" - who exactly these Arabs were is not mentioned, because if they turned out to be known troublemakers or murderers, the story would be far less interesting). Furthermore, the story of Deir Yassin